She had it. That spark. That forever flame that burned brighter with every new connection, experience or really…day. She was beautiful. Not the photoshopped kind, the kind that you could never capture with a camera because her flame was a part of her soul. You could see it blaze through her eyes. You could feel it in her hugs. You could hear it in her songs.
HE felt that flame and like many, he was drawn to it. It fueled him. And so, he was determined to be near it at any cost, forever. He was a chameleon, a shape shifter a fox. He posed as his own flame barer. Self-sustaining and giving. Evolved.
They built a life together. A home, kids, dogs. Despite the signs of her own flickering, she gave. To her kids, her job and most of all Him. She believed that she could reignite his flame, the one he showed her at the beginning. If she just loved a little more, forgave every time…
He never had the flame in his own soul. He simply mirrored hers and when he could no longer reflect and he grew hungry he would take a piece of hers. Just a tiny bit at first. Passersby’s would never have noticed she wasn’t burning as bright. But that didn’t sustain him for long, He needed more. Her flame grew weak but it didn’t stop him from taking.
The beautiful thing about a flame is that it can give and give and you hardly see it falter…but when it’s never stoked, or given air to thrive it becomes smothered and that flame, that beautiful flame will go out. Her flame went out.
——
But, those embers…those embers still flickered. That flame was a part of her soul after all so its crumbs weren’t so easy to extinguish and since her flame remained in her children, that was all the air she needed to keep it alive inside her. And she did, until she met her accelerant. Now she has it. That passion. An inferno fueled by her own flame and that of another’s that can never go out.
